[P2P-F] commoning row

Thu Feb 10 14:51:53 CET 2011

On the request of Silke, I'm not sending this to the commoning list,

but as a not to be forwarded reply to Christian Siefkes, to this list.

as you may now, communication between me and martin pedersen and massimo de
angelis have not been peaceful lately, and things have not gotten better, by
mistakenly copying Massimo on a private assessment that I send to our Greek
friends, whom I asked to cooperate with Massimo, but at the same time
warning them of what could happen, so that they would be on their guard

you are free to judge me for this mistake, AND for my assessment, but it
was, and is, what I think, based on my experience, and I can't change that,
we all experience things as we experience them, through our own personal
biases and filters and reactivity,

so, here is my response to Christian Siefkes, who was shocked by my
assessment, understandably so,

this is just, 'for the record', and I expect Silke, of the commoning list,
to mediate in this conflict, but I expect that healing the antagonism is
going to require staying out of each other's way for a while,

Michel

Dear Christian

SIlke asked me not to answer, but since you ask me, I guess I have to share
already, but provisionally, just to yout; however, it is the one I would
have send to the commoning list

Yes, I did sent this private letter, and the googlemail demon made me click
on massimo's name, talk of a freudian slip; of course, I am not at all proud
of this; now I wish I would make a different assessment, but this is exactly
how I think of it, based on my experience

but, this was a private assessment, to one person, so that they would not
get embroiled in the same process as I here, in other words, to avoid what
is happening here; this is my duty to my friends: I invite them to this
dialogue, but they must know that if they are attacked, not too take it
personally; "it's just a matter of style of a particular group of people and
you have to know what to expect"

but please note,

- that what I was doing was actually opening a communication line with greek
activists, so the context I was aiming for was to help both massimo to
continue his announced query, while wanting to avoid the communication
issues that plagued this list; so the aim was exactly that they could
communicate, without getting enervated as they would be aware of this style
beforehand, and think of it not as a problem, but as something to be aware
of, so as to avoid it;

- it is one letter to one person, not a smear campaign to destroy a person
or seeking harm; there is nothing systematic to it, one individual warning;
in fact, throughout this time, I have been doing the opposite, i.e.
promoting the work of massimo and martin, see next paragraph

- throughout this exchange, and for the last weeks and months,  I have
continued, despite the animosity between us, to blog, wikify,  facebook and
twitter the views of both Martin and Massimo, making them reach audiences
they may not have reached on their own, since they are likely to reach a
different one; this is not the attitude of an enemy, nor an indication of a
smear campaign; but rather of someone who takes their arguments seriously,
and seeks to make them known to even more people; this can be easily
verified in the p2p foundation resources or by checking search engines

- I do not object to their views, even as I not share them, only to the
caricuturing of views they do not agree with, such as apparently, mine; and
again, I'm not the only one that has complained to be at the receiving end
of such style of communication

So, don't ask me to be sorry to share with my friends my assessment of my
experience; and to give them a warning so that they can avoid experiencing
the same; that this should be shared accidentally is an error of my part;
I'll let you judge about the sharing of private mail yourself; but given the
circumstances, I do not hold this at all against Massimo, I can fully
understand how it must feel to get something like that: I would be similarly
shocked

however, I am also shocked of hearing I would bulldoze local communities to
impose them fiberoptic cables, am opposed to the politics of indigenous
people and what not; I sent my assessment of my true (in the sense of
subjective) experience privately; I have to get these character
assanisations over a public list. Frankly, I would prefer Martin and Massimo
would say true bad things in private, rather than to have to hear such
false things in a public forum.

-- 
P2P Foundation: http://p2pfoundation.net  - http://blog.p2pfoundation.net

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Commons Strategies Group, http://www.commonsstrategies.org/
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